Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: response to CA Real Estate, Legal Ownership

Why do you not just record the deed and eliminate the issue. But since you are the legal owner, you can do the eviction. It is really simple.

Re: response to CA Real Estate, Legal Ownership

If the former owner of the property has signed and delivered a deed to you, you are the legal owner. Recording a deed only puts the world on constructive notice that you are the owner; it does NOT affect "legal" ownership. I would agree with Mr. Russakow, however, that unless there is a very good specific reason for not recording the deed, it should be recorded.

Re: response to CA Real Estate, Legal Ownership

Again, nobody is going to do the research for you without being paid to give you citations to the various case law and code sections that address the issue. That being said, you don't need it. A judge hearing the unlawful detainer is going to be smart enough to already know that an unrecorded deed is sufficient to transfer ownership of the property, HOWEVER, you have a bigger problem. You cannot simply walk into court with a copy of an old unrecorded deed to prove you are the owner. You have to establish that the person who signed the deed owned the property at the time it was signed and delivered, that no further conveyances (recorded) have taken place from that same person, and that other matters haven't adversely affected your claim to title, as a start. This is exactly why deeds should be recorded. I think you are doing yourself a huge disservice trying to do this yourself. If the tenant properly raises the issue of your not being the owner of the property, the pressumption shifts to you to prove you did in fact own it when you started collecting rent from the tenant, all the way through until the trial. As stated before, walking in with a deed isn't going to do it in most courts (assuming the property is in the zip code you posted, you'll be filing at the Laguna Hills branch which, from experience, is not going to accept the deed only as proof of ownership). I wish you good luck in prosecuting this matter, however, as stated above, you need to focus your energy learning the rules of evidence and determine how you are going to rebut the Defendant's claim of lack of standing to sue.

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